A 20-year tradition: Local volunteers serve Thanksgiving dinner to community

The group served around 120-150 meals on Thursday.

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – It’s the season of giving, and several community members volunteered at Matt Talbot’s Kitchen and Outreach on Thanksgiving Day.

Volunteer Gregory Harrison, his family and others have been serving Thanksgiving dinner for 20 years. This year, guests were offered a to go meal because of the pandemic.

“This year, we’ve had to scale back, Harrison said. “We’ve just done turkey stuffing, potatoes, gravy, green beans and cranberry salad.”

Harrison said the thought of not serving a Thanksgiving meal this year didn’t even cross his mind. His team takes all the precautions. There’s been more hand washing and sanitizing. Volunteers and guests must have a mask on. The Thanksgiving dinner is a tradition, but Harrison and his group of volunteers serve meals on the fourth Thursday of every month. Harrison says the group has “regulars.”

“We run into guests in other parts of town when we’re shopping, grocery shopping, Walmart shopping, whatever. We’ll run into guests and some of them we recognize because we’ve gotten to know some of the guests well.”

Giving back to the community and serving is a generational effort, especially for Harrison and his family. He has nine children, and some of them have been helping in the kitchen since they could walk.

“We love it. We wouldn’t have done this for 20 years if we didn’t get something out of it as well. I mean it’s been something that’s apart of our family now. Half my children have grown up with it. They have no memory of a Thanksgiving meal at home, because we’ve never had one.”

Harrison encourages the community to volunteer at the kitchen anytime, not just the holidays. You can find more information on ways to volunteer at the Matt Talbot Kitchen and Outreach website.